a moment of clarity

WoW: The Numbers

Is she FINALLY going to get around to posting numbers after jerking us around all week?

13

69

(teehee)

474635

There, you got numbers, you happy?

Alright, alright, I’ll post some numbers and I’ll cut to the chase:

IF

(That’s a big IF)

IF we insist on setting up a “you must be this leet to ride this heroic” measurement…

I stand by my initial figure of 1k minimum.

I know, I know, Shyste showed that people in crap gear can do 1500-1700 without a problem.

But until Shyste can figure out how to give the entire party a lobotomy and remove their knowledge of the instances and their classes, I still think 1500 (though certainly plausible) is not necessarily the bottom floor.

Now, I am not DEMANDING 1k.

I am WANTING 1500k+.

I am EXPECTING 1k, and I’m generally not disappointed.

So how did I arrive at this number?

Well for starters it’s a nice, even number, no straggler bits of ones and tens hanging around.

And because, honestly, if they’re in the party with me or another person that knows what the fuck to do, they might not be able to squeeze out much more than that.

If the court will allow me to introduce Exhibit A:

A random Heroic Culling of Stratholme.

Yikes, I’m at the bottom of the DPS. (Yes, the DK was the tank)

The hunter had exceptional burst DPS, followed by exceptional aggro stealing, followed by an exceptional ability to not dump threat.

Feign death? That would cut into his precious damage. It was a testament to the healer’s skill that the hunter did not die once.

As a result, the tank was all over the place trying to keep control.

The ret pally blew up undead, as ret pallies do.

I’m actually surprised at how close I am to the ret pally in damage, what with all the buffs he gets to laying the smack down on the walking dead.

Anyway, this was a group of people that fairly knew what the fuck to do.

Our overall damage contribution is consistent, only 2% difference between the top and bottom.

We were practically scratching each other’s eyes out trying to eke out that extra little bit of damage.

If I didn’t have the level of self-preservation, the respect for healers, and the pity for the tanks that I have, I probably would have been on top – of the DPS list and the tank/healer’s ignore list for being an idiot DPS, much like that hunter probably ended up.

But I used the tools I had available and decided that dying in a heroic just to get that extra 1% damage wasn’t worth it.

…

Now let’s look at Exhibit B:

A random Heroic Utgarde Keep.

Again, we have a DK tank.

And I’ll point out that I very rarely use AoE when running with an unknown tank, they make me nervous.

So I’m at 4k, the tank is pulling 2.2, and the remaining DPS are pulling 1500-1900. Almost 30% difference between top and bottom.

I was basically on cruise control for this run, I happen to enjoy UK a lot and was just in it for the ride. I popped cooldowns when I thought about it, but basically just fell into the zen of a rotation and didn’t over think what I was doing.

So whereas in CoS I was planning what I could do to get higher on the chart and then protect myself if the tank lost it, this was more like WoW yoga. Breathe in… Arcane Blast… Breathe out… Arcane Blast…

The hunter was in full purples, lowest ilevel 213 (Grim Toll trinket). Looking at achievements, he raided in Naxx but hasn’t done much since. He hit 80 over a year ago.

The paladin is in an odd mash up of blues, with a green, and a few purples. Notable is 2 of the Headless Horseman rings. But hey, they’re purple. And he hit 80 just last month.

We got through it just fine.

Do I feel like I carried the group?

Meh, we would have gotten through it even if I had only been at 3k.

Matter of fact, if I had only been at 3k, the others might have actually gotten to kill something, resulting in higher damage/DPS for them.

Between them, I might be a little disappointed in the hunter. But I didn’t catch him afk or picking his nose and it wasn’t like I was actually working to pick up his slack.

…

Now, let’s look at a hypothetical situation.

Me rocking the charts. (can’t spell damage without MAGE)

Dark/Soth tanking on his DK, and rocking the charts. There are some instances I have trouble keeping ahead of him – when he’s the freaking tank. (And he wonders why we think he has brain damage when he said he’s not that much above average. /hug)

We’re probably looting the first pull by the time he’s finished saying “hai gaise!”.

If he tries to assist the tank, he’ll be lucky to get two shots off before we’ve destroyed that target.

AoE?

Too late. FoK, DnD, Flamestrike and Blizzard all took care of it while he was patiently waiting for the tank to gain aggro.

The poor guy’s numbers are going to blow donkey dong through no fault of his own.

I would be amazed if he actually could hit 1k with the artillery that the three of us could be dishing out.

And what if we brought in a resto shaman that threw out chain lightning because he was bored? Holy pally goes shockadin? Priest lays down with the Holy Smites?

Even worse for the poor guy.

…

Yes, I expect to see a minimum of 1k from everyone hitting a heroic.

Chances are, if you’re not at 1k you’re missing something – could be spec, gear, rotation, a clue.

BUT…

If you end up in a group that really knows what the fuck to do, you might not get a chance to show what you can do.

The leet peeps make it even harder by their very awesomeness for the scrubs to even do anything and then they blame the noob for not keeping up… it’s a mobius strip of illogic.

You must do over 9000 points of damage! But I am doing over 1 million points of damage! Leaving you with nothing to damage! But you must do over 9000 points of damage to be cool like me! And you must outgear the instance to do this much damage! Never mind that you are running this instance to get the gear! You must do over 9000 points of damage!

(Totally seeing one of those Speed Racer-esque animation sequences with the poor budget so it’s a head shot of the character with a flashing background and the mouth is the only part of the character moving. And of course it’s horribly dubbed so he stops talking long before his mouth stops moving.)

EDIT: Ak was totally awesome enough to see my vision and recreate it in stunning epilepsy-inducing detail. I am honored.

…

So, as always, the correct answer is 42.

…

I got a few homework assignments turned in and plan on putting those together over the weekend into something resembling a useful or cohesive post. Longer term, I’m keeping track of damage on both my DK and my pally as they level and will start on my priest.

Post navigation

80 comments on “WoW: The Numbers”

And some specs/classes take time to ramp up. There’s been times on my hunter I get Explosive shot off and that’s it, before the thing dies. Heck, I’ve had stuff die before I got to melee on my melee class characters. Unknown tank means I don’t run into melee right this second.

I’ve tanked CoS as a Prot Pally and with a DK and Ret pally, heck I think you need 2 healers for that party.

In our alt group we have a shadow priest. While we were still in OL instances and the ret pally was killing things just by thinking holy thoughts at them, the spriest was barely on the chart. Now that we’re fighting things that take more than a sneeze to kill his DoTs are getting to tick more than once and he’s making a good showing.

Personally, I’ve noticed that I’m ignoring the lower DPS in those situations and mocking the inability of the high-performers to provide utility. Was watching my hubby in a heroic last night and I wanted to tear the keyboard away from him to berate the mage that didn’t remove a single curse. Yeah, your damage is great, but you’re useless! Remove curses you dumbshit!

I pull it off with a Spellsteal if I’m there. To an ubergeared group, the damage isn’t anything the healer shouldn’t be able to work with, but if I can do something to reduce party/raid damage (and I get a spiffy lightning shield all of my very own) I’m doing it.

I have found, while on my fail mage, if the group is uber geared, I can’t even get above the tank in overall damage. My dps is good, but my overall damage is really low. This is with me AoEing for all the good it does.

When I am in a lesser geared group, I am towards the top with both damage and dps. The fights aren’t finished in seconds and I can actually get some damage in.

As always, much food for thought here. Frankly, I hadn’t even considered the “no damage left for you” aspect, but you’re right on. Curse you for getting this off before my brain even becomes untracked in the morning!

1) i wish i had screen shots of when i started running heroics with my boomkin. All iremember was i had 4pT9 but was not as in tune with the rotation. I ran a heroic with Soth and Ari and maybe Zam. the first qtr of the run was me going MF, IS, start to cast wrath where the fuck did all the mobs go. Thankfully Soth only made fun of me for being me and not my lack of dps.

2) of more importance then the nerf to rogues that ghostcrawler talks about in the link you setup is this “Other stuff (yes, we’ve heard your concerns)” I read that as a Nerf to Dark/Soth.

Other then that i tend not to worry about trivial things like how much dps the rest of the group is or isn’t doing, as long as the bosses and trash are going down with out much problems im happy

I was tanking for my guild’s GM (he plays a DK dps) doing some heroics. He was 1 shotting trash mobs. He had like 6k dps done (because the short time of life of the mob vs the amount of damage done in the instant it was alive) that no one had time to do any dps. Agro..pfft only time I tanked anything was when a boss came up, which promptly melted in <20 secs.

“Too late. FoK, DnD, Flamestrike and Blizzard all took care of it while he was patiently waiting for the tank to gain aggro.”

That’s totally me. Even in raids, I’m so timid about engaging. Back in the day, my guild had a strict “wait for engage” policy. Naturally, the rogues ignored this and mobs would be half dead before the tank would be all “oh yeah, um, engage!” I’ve always thought this was a sign that I was destined to heal, not dps.

I would still play Horde.
I already have a tauren druid and a troll shaman, they just don’t get much time from me. I’m considering an orc warrior because I like the way they look in plate, maybe a DK… hmmm…

But I prefer the belfs. Not only do I love the racial (and miss it soooo badly on my other characters) but I gots a thing for the pointy ears. I also enjoy their voices and animations. (males, the chick belfs drive me up the wall)

Ally side, I roll nelfs for the ears and the voices. I like the combat animations, but I’m a little leary of how my cast animations are going to turn out when I roll that nelf mage in Cataclysm. Shadowmeld as a racial fairly well blows, although it has saved my life at least twice so I shouldn’t knock it too bad.

To be perfectly honest, I am not looking down on any one who plays a belf on purpose, because they just like that model. ALL my belfs are female. I think the male belf is too girly. At this point it’s personal preference. When Cat drops, my currently Draenei Pally becomes a Tauren, back over to the horde from being a female belf pally. I have a belf priestess who will also become a tauren. And the last belf is a mage who is an RP project and her name is Ozarka. Short for Ozarkastraza.

Truth be told, my needling of Repgrind on her humans is purely friendly shenanigans, since prior to her switch to alliance most of her characters were trolls.

I only have one undead character, also an RP project, because when I first went to the Horde, from alliance, I hated the undead. HATED them. I always felt dirty doing their quests. In fact, I am not sure my level 80, 80+ days played Hunter has fully explored the undead area. After reading the WOW books, I have a bit less hatred for them…until I got to wrathgate….

[…] have kind of copped out with posts lately, but hell, I didn’t have more to say on the current topic that is around the blogosphere beyond what I put up on my rebuttal post. I get long winded and […]

Yeah WTF blizz, make mounts scale better. I have to ride a stupid purple ellek because the draenei on the warhorse I actually did the quest for, look retarded. And I suspect the Tauren will too. And yes Arioch, I know how you feel about the Tauren pallies.

That dress is the lovely black dress, it is my healer is bored and is doing dps and i can’t have that tanking outfit.

I think the pony tail said I am here, my hair is out of my eyes and is not binding on my shoulder armor and I am here to hold your attention while other people kick your ass.

My main is a bear/tree druid, and my first alt is a ret pally that’s just dinged to 72. He has a couple pieces of heirloom gear and a random smattering of blues and greens… and is regularly leading dps charts in random normal dungeons with around 1500-1700 dps and a sub-2k GearScore.

Halve that because I actually looked up a decent ret spec and read one article about being a retadin and you’re looking at 750-850 dps if i really had no clue.

I think you’re absolutely right, we should expect that fresh 80’s can do 1k dps. We should expect even moderately approaching geared 80’s to do 2k, and we should expect any level 80 that actually knows what they are doing and has put in a LITTLE time and effort to be doing 2.5-3k+.

…and to the warlock with a 4800 gs who did 900 dps in a failpug i ran in recently… l2p.